Author: Carl Johannink

Tau Herculids activity in 2017 recorded by CAMS By Carl Johannink, Jaap van ’t Leven, Koen Miskotte Abstract During routine CAMS observations in the night of May 30/31 CAMS BeNeLux collected five meteors in just over an hour, which are associated with comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann. These five meteors appeared from a very narrow radiant, near RA=210 degrees and DE=29 degrees, geocentric velocity (Vg) ~12 km/s, with very similar orbits. Further searches on the nights around this peak showed another twelve candidates. The first five meteors very likely belong to the 1941-dusttrail of this comet, that was predicted to produce...

by Carl Johannink and Koen Miskotte Routine CAMS BeNeLux observations during the nights of May 9–10 and May 10–11 collected 26 meteors belonging to the eta Lyrids (145 ELY), which are associated with comet IRAS-Araki-Alcock (C/1983 H1). Further searches on the nights around this peak produced another 6 candidates. Radiant positions and orbital elements are in good agreement with previous CAMS results (Jenniskens et al., 2016). A short summary of historical visual observations is also given. 1 The origin of the Eta-Lyrids The η-Lyrids are the remainders from the long periodic comet C/1983 H1, better known as comet IRAS-Araki-Alcock with...

Despite unfavorable weather conditions CAMS BeNeLux could collect 35 precise orbits of the Eta Aquariids stream in the last days of April and the first decade of May 2017. Radiant positions, radiant drift and orbital elements are in good agreement with the positions in previous work (Jenniskens et al., 2016). 1 Conditions in 2017 It is well known that observing the Eta Aquariids at the latitudes of the BeNeLux CAMS network (50°–53°) has something of playing ‘hide and seek’. The observing window for the BeNeLux sites remains restricted to the morning twilight of the first decade of May. This...

By Carl Johannink and Martin Breukers Introduction The night December 2/3 was clear in the BeNeLux. This was a good opportunity to check whether CAMS BeNeLux could confirm the forecast for enhanced activity of the 66-Draconids meteor shower (Antier, 2016). According to dynamical modeling results for 2016 by Jérémie Vaubaillon, the 66-Draconids meteor shower might show some enhanced activity on December 2nd (around 21h30m UT) and December 3rd (around 07h00m UT). The theoritical radiant would be located at RA = 310°, Dec. = +64° position, which is between Draco and Cepheus. So the radiant would be circumpolar for our latitudes....

CAMS BeNeLux Orionids 2016 : one successful night Nearly all participants in the CAMS BeNeLux network had clear skies during the night October 22/23. More than 300 meteors were captured simultaneously that night. Besides the well-known Taurids, Orionids and Leo Minorids, we observed some other minor showers (see figure 1). Not all of them are shown in figure 1, e.g. one epsilon Geminid ( (23) EGE ) and one October Ursae Minorid ( (241) OUI ) were captured by two or more of our stations. Outstanding of course were the Orionids, as can be seen in figure 1 and in detail in figure 2 (with errors in radiant position...